Six of the Seventh-day Adventist colleges in the United States are operating FM radio stations and another is broadcasting on limited radiation to the campus only. While the letters FM stand for "frequency modulation," they also seem to stand for a number of stations "frequently misunderstood."
This article is designed to reduce misunderstanding and to clarify the purposes, impact, potential, and problems of SDA college FM stations.
Purposes
Most of these stations have three major purposes: (1) To provide an educational service to students at the college, (2) to act as a public-relations instrument to interpret the college to the community, and (3) to provide public service programing to the listening area served.
Training in announcing, programing, audio control, producing, recording, engineering, management, and station secretarial work are among the types of training offered at these stations. In addition, students in many departments such as music, speech, theology, et cetera, participate in broadcasts. Most of the stations are run on an extracurricular volunteer basis although some positions are paid jobs at some stations. Training is not restricted to speech majors or students of any particular department.
Inasmuch as these stations serve communities up to fifty miles distant, they can do much to give a valid picture of the college and the church, to break down prejudice, and to awaken or prepare persons to be receptive to the more direct ministry of the church in a wide area.
The public-service goals of college FM stations are covered in three types of broadcasting: educational, entertainment, and religious.
Educational programs are usually divided into two categories—informational programs and credit courses. At present no SDA college FM stations are offering credit courses, but it is a distinct possibility for the future. The informational programs are of several types—news, talks, discussions, documentaries, quality music, et cetera.
Entertainment programs consist chiefly of light music whose chief function is to increase listening audience for other programs.
Religious programing usually does not take a direct evangelistic approach, but rather that of breaking down prejudice, promoting worship, and giving instruction. The Voice of Prophecy is carried on every one of these stations, and most of them carry such programs as "Your Radio Doctor," "Time for Singing," "Your Story Hour," et cetera. These programs are not overly evangelistic in nature but certainly do tend to carry forth the work of the church.
Impact
That these stations do have an impact is made plain by a recent survey conducted by the Voice of Prophecy. Each listener on the Voice of Prophecy mailing list was asked to write in indicating the call letters of the stations on which the listeners heard the program best, second best, and third best.
A total of 89 listeners in one week indicated that they heard the Voice of Prophecy on one of these college FM stations, and 65 indicated that they heard the program best on one of these stations. The home cities of these stations (which also were large SDA centers) were most heavily represented, but a total of fourteen cities were heard from.
Although it is very hard to know how many listeners each letter represents with certainty, I. E. Gillis, manager of the Voice of Prophecy, estimates that each letter mentioned previously represents 500 listeners. If this is true, it means that some 44,500 listeners hear the Voice of Prophecy on SDA college FM stations.
Potential
In spite of the apparently large listening audience of these stations, it can safely be said that they are not operating at anywhere near their potential. Most of them are relatively low power—only two broadcasting with more than ten watts. All of them broadcast for very limited hours—usually from very late afternoon till late evenings on weekdays and most of the day on Sabbath. During the summer and often during vacation periods these stations are silent.
Almost every station could extend its outreach considerably with the addition of larger transmitters, higher transmitter sites, and antennas of higher gain. Instead of Riverdale-San Bernardino, Angwin-St. Helena, Collegedale, et cetera, the listening audience could include Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chattanooga, et cetera, as well.
Problems
The problems of the college FM station are many: (1) Personnel are never really top-notch, since they are in training and still make many mistakes; (2) promotion of the station is never adequate—too few potential listeners even know the station is on the air; (3) greater communication, liaison, and cooperation with local church, conference, and union leaders are needed, and (4) lack of adequate funds for equipment and operation.
Perhaps someday soon our church may be unable to purchase time on commercial stations—the pinch is being felt in some cities now—and these college FM stations may become a primary method of carrying forward the gospel commission as well as forming a training ground for future broadcasters and breaking down prejudice toward the church.
At any rate, the six SDA college FM stations now on the air and the potential for others like them at our other colleges are an asset of great value that should not be overlooked—a talent to be multiplied.
